


Oxygen

by AceandShadow



Series: OC Backstory Development [1]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Death, Earth, Enceladus - Freeform, Gen, History, NASA, Outer Space, Past, Past Lives, Purgatory, RSA, References to Depression, Sister-Sister Relationship, Sisters, Space Flight, Venus - Freeform, back story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:07:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22414492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceandShadow/pseuds/AceandShadow
Summary: Araeya Michaira was one of the greatest minds hidden in the Ishtar Academy. Her only problem was that her mind would become clouded if she became frenzied by her work. Her sister Daria was alongside her. Her only problem was that she had no confidence in herself, supported by her mother's favour towards Araeya.The two of them were part of one of the greatest discoveries of the Golden Age - the particle that quadrupled the human life span. The only problem was that Daria's head wasn't in the game and it forced Araeya to make a choice and she only had one shot for the future of humanity depended on it.
Series: OC Backstory Development [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1613149





	1. Oxygen

**Author's Note:**

> Teeny bit of inaccuracies as there's no telling whether or not the Guardians experienced the whole 'Purgatory' thing as they don't remember anything of their past lives, however it's just a concept to get the ball rolling, if you will XD

Welcome to Purgatory.” Araeya looked up, puzzled.

“What?” She said.

“You’re dead.”

Araeya sat in shock in front of the meticulous short man who had introduced himself as Petr. His thick Russian accent was somewhat difficult to understand but having worked with the Russian Space Agency in the past, Araeya was used to it. What she was less used to was the sentence Petr had just said to her.

_“You’re dead.”_

“What?” she asked again. Petr sighed.

“This is Purgatory. You know? The place where dead people go to determine their afterlife. You are dead, which is why you’re here. Have you never heard of Purgatory?” Petr tilted his head as he looked at her curious. This blue-skinned female – a skin colour he had only seen a handful of times before – sat before him. She had the most stunning golden eyes and, as he tilted his head, they glowed in a form of fear and he realised he needed to relax his tone of voice. Araeya looked around, twisting her head every which way trying to familiarise herself with the room she was in – an office space. She couldn’t quite believe this man and so she stared at him.

“I’ve never taken much notice. It has always been associated with religion...” her voice trailed off as she looked to the floor. She wasn’t wearing any shoes and she began to wonder why, but Petr interrupted her thoughts promptly.

“I’m your caseworker. Long story short, I’m the one who looks at your life and determines who will go to Heaven and who will go to Hell. Looking here,” he paused as he squinted his eyes and pointed at his computer screen, “your name is Dr. Araeya Michaira and you were an Astronomer, yes?” Araeya looked up at Petr and nodded. “Okay, and do you know how you died?”

Araeya’s eyes widened and she hung her head in shame. A tear trickled down her cheek and she sniffed before taking a deep breath in to speak.

“I gave my oxygen tank to my sister, Daria. We were on our way from the Ishtar Academy on Venus to a site cross-system on Enceladus, moon of Saturn...” she trailed off again.

“Take your time. I just wanted to check to see if you knew how you ended up here, but now I will need the details to put onto your file for analysis. But, in your own time.” Petr sounded more relaxed as he spoke and it reassured Araeya. She adjusted her position on the wooded chair she sat on to make herself more comfortable and acknowledged the colour of Petr’s eyes as they made eye contact – the silver glint that startled her made her want to know how he, too, sat in Purgatory, but as a working instead of a client. Nonetheless, she began her story.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- _Ishtar Academy, Ishtar Sink, Venus_

_Date: 21 st December 2207_

Araeya was sat at her desk in the lab on the second floor of Campus 13 rereading her previous notes on tectonic activity on the moons of Saturn. This was an important project for her because, to date, she had over 40 theories of a particle that could be harnessed to save lives, even past their death – several years past – but she had no luck proving it or getting her notes noticed by any of her superiors. One had said to her a few weeks before that she was a valuable asset to have with the academy and that she was irreplaceable, but she should focus on the fact that planets _outside_ the solar system could be colonised and should be done so properly. By this point, the human lifespan had tripled and it wasn’t necessary to study these kinds of particles on celestial objects. She shrugged that off and continued anyway. She fed all her data back to the Russian Space Agency on Earth and they funded her to continue her course, despite objections from the board. This was down to several Exodus ships due to take off in the coming days to travel outside the solar system – one of which Araeya’s old schoolmate, Mara Sov and her brother Uldwyn Sov, were due to be on. She prayed regularly for them to have a safe journey. Their discoveries were going to have universal impact – something she hoped she’d be able to create.

Daria startled Araeya in all her thoughts by tapping her on the shoulder.

“Are you doing alright?” she asked. Araeya nodded.

“What are you doing all the way out here?” she asked Daria, her smile beaming. Daria laughed. She had come down from Campus 4 where she worked as a astronomical technician on the project that’s sending the Exodus ships out of the solar system. She was the technician that devised the blueprints for the suits the colonists would wear while they were away. She worked hard at her job, but she played harder.

“I came to see if you’d pushed any boundaries, yet. It’s time I heard your name in my sector since I regularly hear mine in your sector!” she teased. Araeya forced herself to keep her smile. She felt a bit stupid that her younger sister was more successful than she was. “Don’t worry,” she reassured Araeya, “you just set your bar too high, but you’ll get there. Let me see what you’ve got.” Araeya handed Daria her notes and she flicked through them, nodding as she went, her white fringe bouncing across her forehead as she did so. The shine in her hair went well against the Venusian atmosphere, something Araeya’s long green hair didn’t. She blended in with the Venusian foliage instead. Daria paused on the thesis page.

“What is it?”

“You estimate that this particle’s chemical formula is based on its surroundings, how it has to the adapt to the harsh ice of Enceladus, right, and based on that its chemical bonding is of unknown quality, okay? By that state, you’ve estimated it to need to survive in the capacity of a closed, yet free space so you’ve pinned it to the tectonic plates of Saturn’s moons, but you can only predict a plate boundary in one quadrant of Enceladus, yeah?” All the while Daria is picking apart Araeya’s notes, Araeya is nodding, her hand on her chin hoping she’ll come to a conclusion. Still, Daria continues. “The problem I’m seeing here is that the plate boundary estimate is wrong. It can’t be a destructive boundary because the movement would affect the particle’s core stability with that force, bond or not. It would have to make it a convergent boundary, suiting its formula to a T.” Daria leant on Araeya’s desk as she scribbled her thesis on the notes.

“How would that work when the plates wouldn’t be able to form the particle?”

“They would. The space between them is much better suited than a destructive boundary, giving the perfect environment for it to develop. That does change the quadrant, though, and based on your notes, it would pin it in a region a further 40o north-west and around 280ft further down in the iced trenches.” Daria stood up straight and looked at Araeya, hands on her hips. Araeya was stumped. How had she allowed herself to make such an easy mistake? She should have spotted that the moment she’d worked out the particle bonding formulae. She held her head in her hands. Three weeks of work and her lesser experienced sister did it ten minutes.

“Go on. Take your notes now, get your name out there. You can remain in my debt – unless you go on an expedition for this. Then just take me with you, yeah?” Daria smiled, evermore confident in herself and Araeya.

_Ishtar Academy, Ishtar Sink, Venus_

_Date: 24 th December 2207_

Araeya’s grant had been approved and the technicians – Daria included – began working on the suits in preparation for launch New Year’s Day on which Daria, Araeya and their assistance would travel to Enceladus in search of the new, life-changing particle to quintuple the human lifespan. It was experimental at best, but it was the break Araeya needed. The RSA board back on Earth heard tell of her work and were prepared for her to arrive back on Earth with her discovery where she would receive awards for her efforts.

Araeya shaved her head. She said goodbye to her long green hair to make herself anew, ready for her push into the spotlight on science. Her new look brought her evermoving confidence.

Araeya and Daria began their mental and physical preparation for launch, but something about the way Daria had begun acting was bothering Araeya...

_Ishtar Launch Bay, Ishtar Cliffs, Venus_

_Date: 1 st January 2208 – New Year’s day_

Araeya, Daria and their crew boarded the _Quod Imperator Stella_ at 0550am Venusian time for take-off at 0600am. With the new technology at hand, they would arrive on Enceladus within a week where they would stay for two months, harvesting and testing the particle, before arriving on Earth with their data. They would have no communication with anyone outside of the mission. They would have only but themselves on the cold harsh plain of the moon of Saturn – something that would test their very limits of patience, physical strength and mental capacity. Araeya was not afraid for the light was in sight. She was, however, worried for Daria. She felt as though she was hiding something.

_Five days later – somewhere in the celestial plane amongst Saturn’s Rings..._

Araeya woke up on the 5th day to see they were nearing in on their destination, slightly ahead of schedule. Everything had gone so smoothly – their food stocks were higher than estimated, their health hadn’t declined, and they were all still relatively stable in their moods. No-one had fallen out with another or tested anyone’s patience, nor had anyone experienced any symptoms of distress or psychotic behaviours. In fact, Araeya, in particular, was in her best shape for a long time. She looked out of the window fondly, admiring Saturn’s beauty and the celestial objects that stood in its wake. How she admired the universe, and now to use it to her kind’s advantage – to use what they already had to make more, to make better. For the first time since she was dispatched to the elite group within the Ishtar district, she felt she was contributing to the world, doing what she was truly born to do. It was only a shame she never made it.

Daria startled her again – something she seemed to be good at doing. “You look pleased,” she said smiling, her facial expressions sincere.

“I am. Very.” Araeya responded with a content sigh. She turned to Daria, still smiling, yet she could not see the blue glint in her eyes that she would normally see in Daria’s happiness. She put a hand on her shoulder.

“You’ve been different. What’s going on, Daria?” Daria sighed and looked down. This worried Araeya.

“I’m glad I could help you get here, Araeya, but I’m not meant to be.”

“What do you mean? You wanted to come. It’s my repayment to you...”

“I know. I know,” she sighed, “that’s not what I meant. I’m happy to be here in the ship, seeing you be how you rightfully should be, but I shouldn’t be here. Not with you on Venus, not working in the Ishtar Academy, not anywhere.” Araeya spotted a tear stream down Daria’s face before she quickly wiped it away.

“You have as much right to be here as the next person, Daria. You’ve worked just as much to get to where you are-” Araeya began, but Daria interrupted.

“I said, I don’t want to be here, where I am. I want to be home, on Earth. But I can’t go back. There’s nothing anywhere for me. Not on Earth, not on Venus, not on Enceladus. My superior wouldn’t let me go back anyway. So, I will return. Somewhere. Another life maybe.” Araeya stood in shock listening to Daria’s voice break.

“Daria, listen, this is the confinement talking. You’re stressed, but we’re not far now. You need to hang in there just a bit longer.” Araeya tried to talk sense into Daria, but she wasn’t there. Not anymore. Daria was left back on Venus.

“It’s not the confinement, Araeya. This started a long time ago. I came to peace in the lab while I was working on the suits.”

“Daria...what did you do...?” Daria turned around and pointed to her oxygen tank. She had tampered with its capacity and it showed only a mere hour left before it would run dry. Araeya stepped back.

“I’m sorry. But I want you to go on without a hinderance. I don’t want you to hold back in fear of leaving me behind. You were always supposed to be better than me. Do more. See more, and instead you’ve been stuck in my shadow. But no more. I won’t do it. There’s nothing here for me anymore. Nothing anywhere.”

The two sisters stood in silence. Neither of them wanted to look at each other – to see their true emotions. They didn’t know what more to say. Daria had put Araeya in a difficult position – one that cannot be rectified. She didn’t know what to do. She began to lift an arm up towards Daria’s face, but put it behind her back. She did this several times, each one as tentative as the other, until she took the plunge and grabbed Daria’s shoulders to pull her in and squeezed her tight. It was then that they both sobbed, not for themselves but for each other. Araeya’s arms were wrapped tightly around Daria’s back, rubbing her gently, but Daria knew what her game was.

But before she could do anything, Daria couldn’t breathe for Araeya had taken her oxygen tank off of her back. She collapsed on the floor, gasping for air. Araeya wasn’t trying to kill her. All the while she was tentatively moving around Daria, she had dislodged her own tank and quickly detached it from her back to attach it to Daria’s. She had to be quick before she died from lack of oxygen. Once it was on Daria’s back, she attempted to put Daria’s tank on her back so that she had enough air to say her real goodbyes. But she struggled as she was rapidly losing her sight and coordination. Daria had picked herself back up hoping to put Araeya’s tank back on her, but neither of them were going to get a tank on the other in time before Araeya ran out of air. Instead, they both knelt on the floor, Araeya very quickly losing consciousness.

“Why Araeya? Why would you give up something like this?”

“I... could ask you...the...same question...” she gasped.

“This isn’t what I wanted for me. But you...you want this?” Daria cried. She laid Araeya on her side and saw the golden shine of her eyes fade.

“You...you got me here...I wouldn’t have done...it...without you...you need to carry it on...do that for me? You were...always smarter...always better...you deserve it...more...” Araeya tried to lift her arm to Daria’s face, wiping her tears away. “Go...recreate yourself...do it for me...do it for you...”

Daria clung to Araeya’s hand as she leant her face into it for over an hour following the loss of the golden glow of her eyes. That glow she had admired for so long – how it never faded, not even for a second. The hundreds of times Araeya was turned down, sent away. The hundreds of times she couldn’t work for lack of sleep, despair. Not once did it dim. How Daria had hoped never to see the day. The day the golden glow ceased to shine. The day she would see Araeya’s lifeless body before her own eyes. She glanced out of the window Araeya was looking through and she could see the shine of Enceladus’ ice in the distance. She was here for two months. She would continue Araeya’s work until she got back. Then she would leave. She couldn’t work somewhere that would miss their greatest mind, somewhere they shared...

No. Daria would return to Earth, walk away and never look back.

Araeya sobbed as she looked at Petr typing away on his computer. She had given her life for her sister to continue in the name of humanity, and where she sat in Purgatory, she had no idea if Daria had stuck around. She held that blue glint of her eyes in her heart, knowing that the last time she saw her, it was absent. That was how she knew Daria was gone. She’d left Daria on Venus a long, long time ago. She just didn’t know it.

Petr stopped typing. “You gave your life to your sister’s in possibly the most painful way and in the stickiest circumstance I’d ever heard, and I’ve been in this job a while. No matter. Your death was over 200 years ago, so you’ve been waiting a while, but I shall delay no longer and get you on your way. On the records, you were buried in the particle dig site. A successful dig site, at that, so congratulations. Our expedition was worth it.” Araeya sat up immediately.

“Petr Adroikov? My engines mechanic?” Araeya said stunned.

“I would have said something sooner, but you look so different now and I didn’t want to believe it...” he looked away. As he looked away, a blinding light shone from above where Araeya was sitting. Petr sighed in an almost annoyed fashion, yet content.

“You’re sending me to Heaven?” Araeya asked as she looked up, shielding her eyes.

“Oh no. As it happens, you’re being summoned somewhere of a far higher order than Heaven or Hell – somewhere far greater. A form of redemption, you could say, or in your case, a form of consolidation.” Petr smiled.

Araeya woke with a jump and sat upright so fast that she knocked her head on something. That something got up, shook itself and floated back to her. It studied her as she sat bolt upright staring fearfully at everything around her – especially...it.

“I am a Ghost. _Your_ Ghost, to be exact. You’ve been dead for over 200 years, but I have brought you back. Do you have a name I might call you by?”

Araeya sat and thought for a moment. She couldn’t remember a thing. She didn’t know where she was, who she was, how she died. Nothing. One name rang true in her mind.

“I think I am Araeya...” she said, unsure.

“Araeya. For now, you can call me Ghost. Right now, there are going to be a lot of things that you won’t understand, but we will come to that when we are out of harm’s way. We need to get back to Earth!”

Araeya looked at her blue skin. Something _was_ different. _Everything_ was different. Whatever she was – whoever she was – she was no more.


	2. No Oxygen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daria is left empty by the loss of Araeya and it all goes downhill from there when she tries to reason with herself and her mother

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any speech written within << >> indicates speech in another language. In this instance, the spoken language is Russian

Araeya’s lifeless body was left exactly as it was as Daria and her crew exited the ship upon arriving on Enceladus. Daria paused, her face damp from tears, although she cried no more. She looked down at her gloved hands while her crew carried their research equipment out to the correct coordinates. Those very gloved hands she’d used to sabotage her space suit all because she felt insignificant next to Araeya.

Their mother had always praised Araeya’s mind – how flawless it was – and so much so that she often overlooked Daria. All her life she felt second-best to Araeya and it only really started to affect her when they both got a job with the Ishtar Collective.

Daria very quickly became known in her department for ground-breaking technology research for suits in deep-space exploration. Araeya had been working on the same theory for months – almost years – and so she missed out on being known for the brilliant mind she was. Daria revelled in her success, but she never felt right by owning it. In fact, she couldn’t feel anything but depression. She knew Araeya’s time in the spotlight was coming and she would be marginalised once again when it came.

In begging Araeya to take her on her expedition, she planned to kill herself so that she would never have to feel that insignificance in her life again – that feeling stole her triumph and she wanted it gone, but she saw no other way. In her absence, people would look to Araeya as they always should have done, giving her the success she deserved.

But Daria hadn’t accounted for Araeya’s heart. For all her intelligence and flawless mind, Araeya’s heart was enormous – she had endless love – and, deep down, Araeya knew Daria was smarter, more willing, more patient. Daria was everything Araeya wasn’t. If Araeya couldn’t live without Daria, then she wouldn’t at all.

A single tear escaped her eye as Daria stole a look behind her at Araeya’s body and then down at her feet again. She sighed.

She scuffed the moon’s surface with the heel of her boot, unsure of how to continue. She knew that she couldn’t take Araeya’s body home on the ship – it wouldn’t survive the journey and she couldn’t bear the thought of her older sister…not in one piece.

She looked over her shoulder again.

And again.

Araeya was dead. _Her sister_ was dead. Daria killed her sister. The more she thought about it, the more the dread sank in.

Daria dropped to her knees. Her crew turned to look at her.

“Dr. Michaira? Are you sure you want to continue?” Petr Adroikov had stopped to turn to Daria.

Daria looked up. She couldn’t cry anymore.

“Yes,” she said, broken. “I have to. For her. I want her to have one last success. I want to _see_ her last success.” She slowly got herself up off the floor and began walking to the equipment and helping her crew to set it up.

“Daria, if I may say,” began Mikhail, his hands linked in front of him, “you don’t have to do this, if you don’t want to. We can sort everything out here, get back to Venus and we’ll file all the necessary reports, so you don’t have to…”

Daria nodded.

“If it’s all the same to you guys, I’d just like to get this done, report our findings and, actually; I’d quite like to go back to Earth. I need to alert the Russian Space Agency personally.”

The rest of her crew nodded in agreement and for the next few hours, no-one said a word. They all remained focussed on setting the equipment up before they turned in for their first night on Saturn’s icy moon.

While externally they were all quiet, they couldn’t silence their thoughts. Daria couldn’t see clearly for her thoughts – she ran on autopilot all day. She had never felt so many feelings; sadness, depression, pride, loneliness…she couldn’t distinguish them from one another.

That celestial night, Daria didn’t sleep. She kept peeking out of her hut to check the body. She knew full well that Araeya was dead, and while a part of her didn’t want to see her alive again, the other part of her really wanted to hold her one more time, feeling the heat from her body and her arms squeeze around her. She would never feel whole again. She was too conflicted – too many feelings fighting for priority in her mind.

“Dr. Michaira, you have not slept, and we are due to start our first reading in two hours…” Petr remarked. Daria looked at him with weary eyes.

“I am aware of this, Petr. I shall be fine.”

Petr looked at her, tilting his head. He was unconvinced.

“With all due respect, are you sure you would not like to sort out the body _before_ we start? Perhaps it would help with distractions?” Petr was nervous about mentioning Araeya’s dead body in case it provoked an emotional reaction from Daria, potentially delaying the research project.

It wasn’t necessarily that Petr saw the project as a priority over Daria’s grief, but it was more that he wanted to keep Daria’s focus so that she didn’t lose sight of why they were there – especially since her mental state was not as whole as it should be and they were halfway across the Solar System on a desolate icy moon. There was no telling what she was thinking, if at all.

“Okay. What do you propose?” Daria asked, hopefully. Petr thought for a moment.

“Given that it was her project that brought us here – with your help – perhaps we could reserve this moon as some form of memoriam? Once we have extracted and researched what we came for, how does burying her in the dig site sound?”

Daria was surprised by that idea.

“I like the sound of that. But what do we do with her beforehand?”

“I have a spare hut. We shall lay her there and preserve her. The digging will take a couple of hours, but the research has been estimated to be a few weeks.”

Daria nodded. She accepted that this couldn’t be sorted quickly, and therefore, Petr’s idea was the best they had for the time being. Unexpectedly, she was looking forward to burying her sister in an act of memoriam – she felt she deserved that much.

That Saturnian morning, the team began their excavation procedure. Daria monitored the process all the while glancing over her shoulder at the hut preserving her dead sister.

She did this day in and day out, night _and_ day for 4 months as the team tirelessly continued Araeya’s work. Daria never settled. She could never get used to the ghostly feeling of a missing relative. She had yet to tell their mother back on Earth.

After 4 months since her death, that would easily be the hardest thing Daria would do.

With one week left of their expedition and their ground-breaking work nearly finished, Mikhail suggested that they left for Venus early and allowed Daria some time to come to terms with everything, leaving her the Earth shuttle to return to the Russian Space Agency with Araeya’s discovery – the very particle that would quadruple the human lifespan.

The excavation had taken the focus of the whole team, digging several miles into the Moon of Saturn’s surface – one such that left a gaping hole in the surface that would not easily be repaired.

“Dr Michaira,” Mikhail began, walking into Daria’s hut, “we have packed the equipment away as requested. With your permission and reassurance, we shall depart with our formal report back to Venus. We have left you the Earth shuttle for your trip back to Russia, Earth and enough provisions for your journey. May I suggest that you leave within the week to ensure your safety?” Petr also walked into the hut.

Daria looked up from her book at the two men. They could see her blank expression – it was the same blank expression she had since they arrived on Enceladus. Daria wasn’t there anymore. In losing Araeya, they had lost Daria and they were getting neither of them back.

The great Dr Daria Michaira was a hollow shell of her former self and Araeya had filled that hollow shell because, for as long as Daria had lived and breathed, she had convinced herself that she wasn’t anything without Araeya.

She had done this to herself and there was nothing that anyone could do to make it go away.

It would never go away.

“You may go,” she said plainly. “Give the Academy my regards.”

“You aren’t coming back?” asked Petr.

“Not in this life.” Daria’s face remained completely straight as she turned back to her book.

Petr and Mikhail looked at one another, worried that they weren’t doing the right thing, but they could see there was no changing Daria’s mind.

Mikhail left for the _Quod Imperator Stella_ and Petr bowed where he stood.

“I shall see you on the other side,” he said solemnly, tears building in his eyes. How the mighty have fallen. He’d looked up to the Michaira sisters for years and to see them both reduced to ghosts doing what they loved was harrowing. He’d never have imagined either of them would become so hollow so quickly and he never anticipated the strength of their bond, however insignificant they felt within themselves.

A few hours past and Daria emerged from her hut – the only living person on the entire celestial object – the research base a desolate ice wasteland. Across from where she stood, sat Araeya’s hut and all the necessary tools for her burial. She knew she needed to do this alone.

She looked over to the excavation site and pondered its position. She couldn’t bury her sister several miles into a moon’s surface and so she padded out the layered tunnels enough so that she felt satisfied she was doing the right thing.

Carefully, she picked her sister up, but she didn’t move straight away. Instead, Daria knelt on one knee, holding Araeya in her arms, looking at her sister’s lifeless face, ghostly in the icy moonlight. There was no light in her eyes, her limp body hanging over her arms, flopping on her knee. But she felt nothing. She couldn’t cry anymore. She just looked at what was left of the other Dr Michaira of the Ishtar Academy department of the Russian Space Agency and thought only of what everyone now lacked and thought of her mother’s reaction when she got home.

Daria would be marginalised once again.

Carefully placing her into the old excavation site and lining her body neatly into position, Daria sat at Araeya’s feet, her legs cross, twiddling her thumbs.

“You know, I’ve always hated you,” she began, looking down. “You’ve stolen my limelight for years. You’ve stolen mother’s love from me, even after I came along. I went out of my way to take something from you. I stole your success. I stole your intelligence. In doing so, I thought it would replace what you had stolen from me, but instead…instead it stole even more from me. No matter what I did, I would always lose, but I could never accept that. _You_ were always the better person. I admired you for that – you never stopped trying to better yourself. _You_ killed yourself in _being_ the better person. But you not only stole yourself from me, but you took _me_ with you. You really are the most selfish, careless, lowly…amazing, dedicated, powerful person I’ve ever had both the disgrace and pleasure of working with and being related to.” Her tone changed as she relaxed and let her anger dissipate into nothingness.

“You’ve done some amazing work, here. We did it. We made your dream a reality. It’s just a shame that your dream will forever remain a dream because you decided my life was more worthy than yours. If only you could feel what I feel, only now, you never will.” Daria paused again as she stood up.

“I still have many things I wish to say to you, but I would be wasting my time if I continued to say them here and now, so I’ll say this now; in proving you have a heart, you have become heartless and I just want you to know…” her voice began to break for the first time in months as she became tearful, “after everything you’ve done, you still made me who I am today – made me whole – and I thank you for that. I love you for that.”

She walked over to her hut and sighed. She would leave her emotions with Araeya – she knew she would look after them. Daria wanted to avoid them getting in her way on her journey home. She needed to get there as wholly as she could, as absent as herself was.

At the crack of celestial dawn, Daria boarded her Earth shuttle along with the research, the particle and findings, without hesitation. She didn’t even so much as look back at Araeya one last time. She was leaving her sister – and her most part – millions of miles away on one of the System’s iciest moons, monumental to the movement of the human lifespan expansion courtesy of the Michaira sisters, forever.

She felt nothing.

Araeya never crossed her mind even once throughout her journey back to Earth.

Upon landing back in Moscow several weeks later, Daria was wildly greeted by the press, officials and board members. She waded through the crowds and into the board rooms where she presented the Russian Federation with her findings.

It was also where she announced the untimely demise of Araeya Michaira, to which the board responded with a suggestion of a memorial celebration to honour her work in the field.

Daria still felt nothing.

The following day, she had the job of telling her mother everything that had happened, which was more difficult than she’d anticipated, since her mother’s first response to her long-awaited arrival was;

“Where’s Araeya?”

Swallowing her anger, Daria invited her mother to sit down and listen to her carefully.

<<Mother, I have some bad news>>

Her mother froze and tears welled up in her eyes.

<<Araeya sacrificed her life for mine>> she said plainly.

<<How could you have been so stupid as to let her do that, Daria?!>>

Daria sighed. She knew her mother would never understand

<<I couldn’t stop her. You wouldn’t have been able to stop her. You know what she’s like – stubborn>>

Without warning, her mother got up and left the room, leaving Daria wondering what went wrong all those 23 years ago for her mother feel the way she did about her – so secluded. So recluse. So…against her. Trying to talk to her was like talking to a brick wall – impossible. Trying to make her feel something other than resent was like getting blood from a stone – impossible.

What had gone wrong?

Still, she felt nothing.

She was numb all over.

The following week, it was the RSA’s memorial celebration to Araeya, and their mother had gone to speak at it.

Daria didn’t go. She couldn’t bring herself to go. Her mother had made her out to be a murderer and going to the memorial would have been like exposing her hiding position as if she’d been on the run.

She felt like she was on the run, but she didn’t know why. What was she running from?

Instead, she stayed at home and locked herself in the bathroom, looking at herself in the mirror.

She whispered to herself, bluntly. She felt nothing.

“Эта жизнь не стоит того, чтобы жить. Возможно, другая жизнь...”*

No-one heard from Daria after that day. Only her mother knows what happened and she has since left Russia and no longer has anything to do with the RSA.

The disappearance of Daria still eludes the team on Venus, and they wonder if she could ever bring herself to leave Enceladus after everything that had happened.

They held a memorial for both Michaira sisters at the Academy, commemorating their work.

Perhaps another life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Translation
> 
> "This life is not worth living. Perhaps another life..."


End file.
